The Soul of the Sea
by Lady Shini Eren
Summary: Maka is a girl who has spent ten years in hatred of the ocean, and never has she wanted to learn more about it. Although, once a certain boy who lives in the village of the sea reaches out to her, she finds out there is so much she never completely understood. {Soul Eater AU; Nagi no Asukara inspired.} Rated T: For Language


Prologue: **Land and Sea**

A long time ago, man lived underseas. They played and relished the beautiful underwater atmosphere, living peacefully amongst the constant flow of tides and beings that dwelled at the bottom of the sea floor. The power that we were naturally born with to harness the ability to breathe underwater was known as Ena. Ena was a gift from the Sea God and everyone cherished it dearly. After all, it was Ena and the Sea God which contributed to their lives under the sea. They were all happy, until that is, people decided to step out of their comfort zone. It was only natural, that those who chose to venture from God's domain would be stripped away from his blessings. Our ancestors claim that as soon as the first humans emerged from the surface, their Ena turned brittle and tore away like tissue paper. Never again, were those people ever be able to breathe in the water like how the Sea God deemed to be. Eventually, more and more people decided to live on land as well, and the earth became populated by air breathers. Soon enough, the difference of the people of the land and the people of the sea were clear as night and day, and we were all separated by the coastline of the ever churning blue.

It was basic history: the story of evolution. My school had taught those words ever since I was a little kid, and it is the words that many of the people my age carry for the rest of their lives. Some would have thought we would have began to doubt these omens and stories we were fed, but that was impossible because it was made clear to everyone in our little town that they were hard-based facts. Well, that's what they said, rather than admitting that there were no other explanations on how things came to be.

The more I stared at the sea, the more I wondered why mama had liked those calm, peaceful nights, where the salty ocean breeze flipped your hair and entered your nostrils in everlasting harmony. That feeling of joy, she said, she felt was amazing as she took off her woven sandals and jumped onto the soft sand beach, dancing into the cool waves that tickled her ankles; she would spread out her arms and cry for joy, which would be drowned out by the roar of the ocean. Unfortunately, I wished I could feel the same way—the happiness of the sea. Now, it was just a reminder of my demise and how the water was as violent and ruthless as a raging fire.

My mama; she was from the sea, I think—that's what everyone told me. Times were different now than centuries ago, and the culture found beneath the surface was ought to be too old-fashioned for anyone to make a living anymore. Now, it isn't too uncommon to see a person of the sea to be working at a general store or making deliveries. My mama was like that. I heard that she helped deliveries from the old fishery that I stay at right now, and that's where she met my papa and fell in love with him. For my mama, it was quite the situation she was in: the people of the sea were completely forbidden from doing something as to so lowly fall in love with the pig on land, but she never listened. As a result, she was exiled from the village of the sea and never returned to her home again. But, she was still so happy. As long as she was with papa, then I guess she believed everything would turn out all right. From then, she gave birth to me, an air-breather and continued to live with the people of the land, though as far as I can remember, she never stopped staring at the endless blue so longingly.

I was just four years old that stormy night where papa had disappeared amongst the churning black waves. He had been out for another fishing expedition, I think—fishermen of our town had to sail farther into the ocean to avoid the village under the sea. Apparently, it had been the storm of the decade, and there were many casualties afterward, and that included the life of my papa. Mama never was the same afterwards, if I recall. She stopped staring at the sea, and she drank and cried every night. I was too naive of a child to do any good for her mental stability. Maybe I was a reminder of my papa too much, and how nobody would have died if she decided to live outside of the ocean. One night, she claimed it was the Sea God's wrath.

And then she was gone.

And she never said goodbye.

I lost everything to the sea that mama loved so much, and eventually, I just started to hate it. Since our town is connected to a harbour, it was kind of unlikely to hear of a person so out-of-tune with the current events that are connected to the water, but I could barely stand to look at it anymore.

As always, I woke up the latest, thought I still wasn't the slightest bit out of time. It was a thing I got used to after living with such dedicated fishermen for so long. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, the blurriness of the room receded into the pale morning lit surroundings. The constant tapping sound that tampered up and down outside of my room instantly indicated that Kid was up as well. Ever since I started living with him and his father, it was difficult not to notice his frantic footsteps march on every morning and night. With a sigh, I slipped out of my fluffy futon, then stood up, cold planks of smooth hardwood tickling the bottom of my feet then headed toward the door. When pulled back the sliding entrance, Kid froze in his steps right beside my view, then nodded.

"Good morning, Maka. Dad wants us to lift some crates to the deck before school this morning." his voice slugged with the lingering of slumber, he turned and pointed to a small stack of crates filled with what seemed to be fishing nets at the end of the hall.

"Lifting. Got it." With a small bob of my head, I started toward the boxes, hoisting one up. It wasn't considerably heavy, though I wasn't sure I could carry two at a time.

For a moment, Kid stood there, gazing respectively at my actions I presume, then tilted his head.

"Aren't...you going to change first?"

"Well, our uniforms were just washed, right? I didn't want to get it dirty so fast, so I'll do half of this, clean up, then change." I replied simply, making way for the porch, I remembered I had to ask, so I called back to him, "where are our uniforms anyway?"

As I slipped on my sandals and hopped outside to the dusty earth, I heard his more faint reply back. "They're out hanging in its usual place. Yours is on the right side of the line."

"Got it!"

"By the way, remember to arrange the crates in an even position near the..."

"I know."

It seemed like an all-typical kind of day, but to be honest, I wasn't expecting for my life to do a complete cartwheel on that exact morning. Usually in the books I like to read, characters can predict if a major change was approaching, but mine wasn't completely like that.

Maybe it started when I saw some of those sea kids jumping out onto the harbour or when I saw one splayed out like a dead fish before me: I don't know, but this was only the beginning of a new fantasy story that only I could record in my little sea-blue journal. This is the story of how I came to understand a lot more than I ever thought I would in my entire lifetime.


End file.
